Some Time
by frilencer
Summary: He needed to figure himself out before taking a step forward in his life. Now that he understands himself, though, he encounters a new obstacle that stands in the way of happiness: his fears.


**After months of lack of inspiration, I am back with another oneshot (story of my life, I know). **I hope you'll like it. :)**  
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**Guess what? I do not own NCIS.  
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Tony had never been a fan of weddings. He did enjoy the cheerful music, brightened by the sound of the laughter and the chats, and he certainly didn't mind the plentiful and refined food you could fill your stomach with to the bursting point until even the simple view of a canapé would make you feel nauseous. He found the atmosphere of weddings magical, with its dances, the beautiful dresses women wore, the wishes for a life full of happiness and good things and he loved overhearing the conversations between the guests, who never gave up gossiping about relatives and their skeletons in the closet. What he didn't like was the feeling of being surrounded by people he had never met, people he didn't even know the name of, although with these people he had one thing in common: the bride or the bridegroom – in his case, always the bridegroom. It made him realize how little he knew about his friends' life: those people, who were uncles, parents, cousins, friends for the couple, were no one for him. He usually ended up spending the whole celebration in the company of a bunch of pals, barely talking to the bridegroom, who was too busy handling clinging aunts and drunk guests.

It was no different that night. Jimmy and Breena had been having a very nice wedding and now that every guest was tired and a little fuddled, there were laughter and awkward dances everywhere, and once again, wherever he moved his gaze too, he saw people who he had only just learnt to be Jimmy's relatives and friends. People who had always been a part of Jimmy's life, people Tony had never heard of but that now they revealed themselves for what they in fact were: the most important people in his Palmer's life. He felt a little left out, so he looked away from the couple who was now dancing in the middle of the lawn and started staring at the three people who were standing around the table with him.

McGee's, Abby's and Ziva's eyes were all focused on Jimmy and Breena and they were all smiling lightly, with a relaxed expression on their faces and Tony wondered whether he was the only one who was feeling slightly uncomfortable in the situation. Watching his coworkers, he couldn't help wondering about the people in their lives he didn't know anything about. He tried to picture in his mind McGee's parents, Abby's siblings, Ziva's friends, and the awareness that they all had a life outside the work place somehow took his breath away. The reason of this was simple: apart from the job and his coworkers, he didn't have much in life, he didn't have many people.

There had been a time when it was totally different. There had been a time when his coworkers were nice people to spend the day with while trying to scrape money together by catching the bad guys. At nights, though, there were other friends, other people. He would spend hours and hours with his buddies, having fun with them while trying to pick up the sexiest girls. Now all his friends were either married with a swarm of kids to take care of, or too stuck in their old skin to suit to him. Tony had been trying to free himself from that same skin and he had somehow succeeded, but he now found himself hanging in the balance between the kid he used to be and the man he was struggling to become. He feared to fall at any time because it was so much easier to be carefree and perky. Though, he didn't want that anymore: he was a grown up man – with his moments of childishness, sure, yet a grown up man who was sick of his old life and wanted to start building his future, a man who was desperately in quest of happiness, _real _happiness, that kind of happiness you can't find in clubs or in the arms of a babe. What Tony was in need of was to settle down, to find a home in a family that he would build himself. He wanted to be able to look at his life and think that it finally suited to him, that in the end he had found the real happiness he had been looking for for years.

He picked up the glass from the table and rested his lips on the rim, sipping the champagne absent-mindedly.

"Are you okay?" he heard someone asking him and he shook his head, awakening from the ocean of thoughts he had slowly sunk into. He met Ziva's eyes, who were checking him with a probing look, the beautiful hazel color of her irises emphasized by the light and the make-up. He stared at her for awhile, contemplating her fine features, and he probably wore a very lost expression on his face because Ziva seemed to get even more worried about him – and the fact that he was silent wasn't helping either.

"I-I'm fine" he stuttered, grinning reassuringly while placing the glass back to the table. Ziva closed her eyes a little, examining his face carefully, as though she knew he was hiding deep thoughts behind his forehead and she was striving to figure them out.

Before Tony could find a conversation to make Ziva's attention focus on, Abby and McGee helped him to distract her by starting a skirmish about whether going or not going to dance in the lawn with all the other guests – needless to say, it was Abby who wanted to dance and McGee the one who wasn't very excited at the thought. Ziva and Tony observed the two of them talking loudly and they smiled when Abby grabbed Tim by the arm and dragged him to the centre of the lawn, where she took his hands and started dancing with a huge smile on her lips. McGee looked at her for awhile, without moving, his hands floating in the air driven by Abby's. Then he started moving slowly – a little awkwardly too – and after a few moments he had been dragged into a frenzied dance by Abby's energy. They were laughing and obviously having fun, and Tony couldn't help thinking they looked very cute.

Next to him, Ziva's focus has been caught by the couple too. She was smiling lightly and sometimes she raised her gaze to the dark sky, looking like a child who is still amazed by the beauty of the world. Tony stopped observing the dancing pair and started looking at her, wondering about all the things about his partner's life he didn't know. With Ziva it was different though. He did know that she had started to have friends outside the work too, but he also knew that her whole life was at the work place. Her coworkers were more important to her than anyone could ever be: they had rescued her, saved her from her past and accompanied her to her new life she was now living. She owed everything to them, she owed them her happiness and her safety. They were her family, the bright replacement for her natural relations that had been falling apart since before she could remember and that now counted among its members only her father, a father who was much farther from her than the distance between Washington and Israel.

He felt like he and Ziva had something in common, something more important than all the differences between them: they both had a life to build after sweeping away the debris of their past, they both were in search of a place to stand, of a new source of happiness. They were both questing after the same thing: a home, a family, something that would last forever, something they could rely on no matter what.

As he looked at her, lost in his thoughts and her beauty, he wondered about asking her to dance, but immediately pushed away the thought. He couldn't picture himself dancing with her and – to be honest – he didn't have the braveness to ask her. He feared the moment when he would hold her by her waist, looking right into her eyes, a slow beautiful music everywhere around them, the world forgotten, left behind as an old friend. As much as he wanted to live that moment – the reason why he did wasn't allowed to be thought at the moment – he was still scared of trying to get what he desired, as if a part of him was afraid to be happy. The truth was, he felt like there weren't many chances left for him. He needed to be perfect, he needed to do it right or he would lose the opportunity forever and he might not have time to try again.

With Ziva it was no easier. Although he had come to the conclusion that it was pointless to hide from himself what he felt for her – he was tired of lying to people, and lying to himself would be even worse - he still dreaded to make a move. He didn't want to risk to graze their relationship and he still wasn't sure that Ziva was willing to find in _him _what she was looking for. He wasn't still sure he wanted to run the risk of losing her while trying to have her.

Though, the thought of dancing with her made him shiver inside. It was something so different from whatever they had ever done that looked unbelievable in his eyes. It made him laugh inside and for the first time that night his heart beamed and he almost asked her to go dance, but she was faster and asked, before he could ever open his mouth, as though she had seen it coming and wanted to prevent it from happening, "Why don't we go for a walk?"

Tony was abruptly dragged back to the real world and looked at her with a confused expression on his face for a while, then he stuttered. "O-Okay."

She slipped away from the table and turned her back to him and he could see distinctly the way her black dress emphasized her perfect figure. He then rushed to follow her, placing himself next to her while she was walking across the lawn, her gaze still wandering around, glimpsing at the world that surrounded them.

Jimmy and Breena had chosen a very nice restaurant with gorgeous food, in the middle of nowhere, which though offered a stunning garden to walk around. Only grass could be seen as they approached a little hill, walking away from the crowd of guests that had gathered in the lawn in the back of the restaurant. They were alone in the dark; the only sources of light were the moon and the lamps of the restaurant, burning far away from them.

While walking silently, Tony tried to savor the atmosphere around them – the fresh air, the smell of flowers, the peace that seemed to extend for miles – but he couldn't help feeling uncomfortable beside her. She had this incredible ability of making him feel at home and uneasy at the same time – or maybe it was his feelings for her that made him sense this uneasiness, he couldn't really tell. He loved being with her, he loved having her by his side, he loved feeling her light presence next to him, as if she could bring peace in his messed up world. Though, he felt the urge of talking to her, of grabbing her and kissing her, a urge that drove him crazy. He was aware that if he would let his defenses fall down it would only take a few instants to instincts to have the upper hand over his mind. The more he was beside her, though, the more he was conscious that she fitted in the life he dreamed to have as no one else could ever do.

He kept taking glances at her, without saying a word, letting her conduce them up the hill that soared above the wide lawn at their feet.

"You have been quite the whole night," Ziva said eventually, giving him a cursory glance that didn't hide the worry she had been feeling just as long as he had been quite.

Tony didn't answer and he didn't even look at her. Her question, the worry in her eyes, his own silence… everything reminded him of that day of more than a year ago when she had confronted him about his sudden change and she had helped him get over his "little" crisis. He knew she had been hurt seeing him like this – not the talkative man he usually was, not the man with the bright smile always on his face, but a completely different man – and he knew she was suffering seeing him so silent now. She could see right beneath his skin, she could sense his pain thousands miles apart. It killed him to know he was somehow hurting her, but he didn't know what to say: sometimes it was hard even only to think about his feelings, let alone put them into words. He knew she would be able to help him – he knewshe _wanted_ to help him – but he wasn't sure he was willing to load up her shoulders with his own weight. The worst thing was that if he would talk about his "problem", he would have to talk about the "solution", and she happened to be that solution. So he just shrugged and kept quiet, which caused Ziva to get even more worried.

"I guess seeing Jimmy getting married is a little…" she chuckled uncertainly, trying to find the right word, "… weird."

Tony nodded and mumbled a "Yeah"that he himself could barely hear. Then, thinking he owed her more than a simple _yeah_, he added, "He deserves it."

Her gaze didn't leave him and he felt cold, anxious, afraid of what she might say. He wanted to run away, he wanted to flee the conversation, yet he wished he could stay there forever. He was conflicted, as he had always been in the past few years, felt ripped in two pieces, one constantly waging war on the other, his heart and brain being the battle field where all the wars were fought.

"We all deserve this moment of happiness, I think," she said, smiling reassuringly at him. "The past year has been tough… last summer, especially." She paused for a moment, gesturing tensely. "I mean, I am glad we can enjoy a moment of celebration and joy… eventually."

Tony kept quiet, avoiding her gaze, and he focused on Ziva's words that reminded him of that day in summer when she had approached him and told him that "they needed some time". He had never had the chance to tell her how right she was. He had had a hell of a summer and as the mission about Cade was over he hadn't felt any better. Suddenly, he had started noticing things he had never paid attention to, suddenly the world had appeared him as brightened from a different light and his eyes had tried to suit to the new view he was staring at. His life had changed a lot since that autumn. He had understood he didn't only need to build his future, but he first needed to figure himself out. He had given himself time to understand himself, starting from the life he had lived, arriving to the man he was becoming. Slowly, day after day, alone with his mind, he had walked along the steps he had left behind, he had followed the path of his life, trying to notice where he had turned, where he had sped up, where he should have stopped yet had kept walking. He had felt the need to comprehend the mistakes, the reasons, and above all himself before taking any other step forward. He had understood that as long as he didn't figure himself out he would constantly be afraid of taking the wrong decisions, of tripping once again and fall to the ground, injured, in pain, with a mark on his skin.

For some months, he had put his life at rest, letting himself focus on who he was, without daring to try to change his life. He had striven to make sense of his life and slowly had succeeded. He had attempted to put together the pieces of the puzzle of his life, starting with his mother's death, followed by his relationship with the women of his past – Wendy, Jeanne, the unnamed girls he couldn't even count – and then Paul - the kid from Baltimore -, the mistakes he had made, the things and people he had lost because of his errors. One by one, he had pieced together the broken vase, picking up the scattered fragments that sometimes had made him bleed.

In the end, he had felt good, free, alive. He had felt as though he could finally walk forward, now that he knew who he was, now that he knew what had brought him to be the man he had become. Yet, he had soon found himself realizing that focusing on one's future wasn't any easier that concentrating on one's past. Sometimes it was even harder, maybe.

He was still fighting, he was still conflicted. He had thought he would feel sure of his decisions once he would have understood himself, but reality was far away from being easy. He was still scared of changing his life, he still dreaded to take a step that could turn his life into something unexpected, something he couldn't control. This was the reason why he had been scared of telling Ziva about his feelings, this was the reason why he had kept hiding what he felt inside, without letting it slide out of him. He was afraid and kept postponing the day he would finally face her, while trying to fool himself with the thought that one day he would be sure she loved him too. Yet, deep inside, he knew that the only way to be sure of it was to ask her. He would _never _be sure if he wouldn't ask her. But as long as he wasn't sure, he didn't want to ask her, hence his silence, hence his waiting, hence his pain and the sense of uneasiness beside her.

So he kept being alone at home at night, so he kept waiting for his life to change, for his future to start. He was aware it had to be him to fight for it, but he felt as though life had left him without strength, without convictions.

He was living a stalemate situation.

Suddenly, Ziva placed herself in front of him, facing him, her eyes staring at his expectantly.

"What is going on?" she asked, softly but with an upset tone in her voice, bending her head a little.

He had to stop walking in order not to bump into her. He shrugged in response and looked at her. She frowned.

"I'm just happy for Palmer. That's it," he said, walking past her, tensed.

"It does not look like you are," she replied sharply, turning, and he did the same, so they were now facing each other once again. He opened his mouth in protest, but she was faster than him and said, "You have been silent the whole night, since we came to the restaurant. I thought it was that you did not feel okay in the middle of a crowd of people you do not know – I myself felt a little uneasy, of course, it is normal – but I now know it is not just that." She paused and observed him intensely, then repeated her question, "What is going on?"

For a second, he felt like lying to her once again, he felt like telling her it was nothing, he was just doing alright. It only lasted a moment, though, and soon realized he was simply tired of lying. Especially to her. She did not deserve his lies, hell, he had already made her suffer multiple times, he was sick of hurting her.

"I have just been… reflective," he admitted, staring deeply at her.

"I have noticed," she replied carefully, slightly nodding.

"I mean, not only tonight… in general, in the past months," he pointed out, leaving her gaze for a while, looking at the garden around them.

She kept observing him, a little worried. "I noticed that too."

He went back looking at her, without smiling, a serious expression on his face. As he stared at her eyes, he saw her apprehension, her worry, her waiting. "I just had a lot to think about, Ziva," he said, bending his head, loving the way her name sounded when it left his lips.

"I know," she said with a smile, a smile that gave him the strength to keep talking.

"I had to try to understand… my past," he said, getting lost in her eyes. "I talked to my father, I talked to Wendy, I talked to Paul... I had to try to understand it, you know? I had to try to understand…"

"… yourself," she continued, nodding.

He nodded back at her and sighed.

"Did it help?" she asked cautiously after a few seconds of silence.

He shrugged. "A little."

She narrowed her eyes and brought her right hand to his arm, touching him in a way that was meant to comfort him. He shivered as her hand stroked his jacket and he immediately went back staring at her, a little surprised, but above all moved by her tender touch. She was so beautiful, he thought, admiring her face. She was so beautiful and young.

He chuckled, tensely, then murmured, "It's not easy to be old, you know?"

She frowned, then tried to protest, but he hushed her by shaking his head. "I know I am. Older than you, anyway." He smiled sadly and Ziva's eyes filled with pain and she got closer to him, without losing the grip to his eyes. "I feel like my time is running out, Ziva," he whispered, his voice trembling.

She shook her head and pronounced a decided, yet trembling "No." She tried to smile reassuringly, but her eyes were filling with sadness and she just conveyed her worry and distress. "It is not running out. You still have plenty of it."

"But I keep wasting it," he replied, raising his shoulders with a wretched smile on his face, his voice still quivering as though he was about to start to cry.

She bent her head as she looked at him and grabbed his other arm with her left hand.

"Then do not waste it," she said strongly, holding his arms tight in her hands. He let her do it, feeling as she was giving him strength, sensing a need of fall down in her arms and let her hold him, let her carry his weight, let her take care of him in a way he wasn't sure he could take care of himself anymore.

He looked at her, wondering if she knew how much he needed her, wondering if she had any idea of how much he wanted her to be part of his future.

Ziva broke the contact with his arms and let her own fall at the sides of her body. She smiled lightly then she turned and started walking, but stopped as he yelled a "Ziva" that sounded begging, pleading. She turned and approached him once again, placing herself in front of him, their faces only inches apart.

He breathed in deeply, feeling an unknown force pulsing inside of him, and before he could stop himself, he asked her, "Have you given yourself time?"

She looked confused for a moment then she started to study his face, carefully.

"Yes," she murmured eventually, smiling slightly, and he could see her mind recalling her meeting with her old friend, a meeting that had given the closure she needed for her past. "I have."

He nodded, his eyes refusing to leave her. "Do you think we still need some?"

She frowned.

"We as in… you and me?" she asked, and he started to laugh. Then, he suddenly became serious and stated, "Yes, that's exactly what I meant."

She smiled and bit her lower lip. "I think we have had enough for us as… individuals, and for us as…"

"Us."

"Yes."

"And what about now?"

His question drifted through the air for a while before finding an answer.

"I have given myself time to understand… everything," she said. "I have given myself time to understand myself, my past, my life, who I am. And so have you." She raised her shoulders and tensely gestured in the middle of the air between them, then spoke again. "I think we understand ourselves now, I think we… understand _us_ now too."

"Didn't we?" he asked, his gaze still firm on her.

"Not as much as we do now, I believe."

Tony nodded, without controlling his mind, without controlling his actions, without controlling his body. He just felt relaxed and he was surprised as he realized how much easier it was to stop yourself from calculating your life too much, how much easier it was to just live the moment.

"I agree," he said.

She smiled. "Then do not feel as if you have wasted your time until now. You have not. _We _have not."

He understood what she meant. He understood. He understood that what she wanted to tell him was that, even though it had taken them years to get where they were now, not a single moment of those years had been wasted. Once again, every day had been a step in their path and as he looked back, now, as he studied that path, inch by inch, he couldn't help feeling happy of the result, happy of what he had become, of what _they _had become.

For the first time, it felt like it had all been right. All the mistakes, all the wrong decisions, all the suffering had brought them to where they were now and it was good, it felt right, it felt perfect.

His heart smiled with his lips.

"We didn't waste it," he stated, repeating her affirmation to convince himself and the world that it was true.

It felt true.

They smiled at each other for a while, in silence, waiting.

"And what about now?" he asked him eventually. "Are we going to start wasting time now?"

Ziva shook her head and smiled slightly. "No."

She stretched out her arms and placed her hands on his cheeks and he sensed her warmth filling his body with peace, calm, happiness. His heart started beating frantically as her smiling face approached him and she touched his nose with hers, resting her forehead on his. He felt her breath crashing softly onto his face, and he savored the view of her eyes for a moment before closing his and pushing her closer, his hand on her waist. She hung on his face with her hands and thrust herself upward, reaching his height, and then she kissed him, softly placing her lips on his and making hers slide on them sweetly. He savored the flavor of her lips on his, then he joined the kiss, calmly, his hand still holding her by the waist.

Tony's heart filled with joy and he could almost hear a romantic music playing in the silent atmosphere around them. He felt like flying as he deepened the kiss, finding his way into her mouth, pressing his body close to hers, letting it adhere on the beautiful dress that covered her wonderful figure.

_Perfect _was the word that flew in his mind, _perfect _was what every cell of his body was screaming.

He moaned as her lips slid off his and tried to kiss her again, but she recoiled with a smile.

"We should go," she said, her eyes still on his mouth, her fingertips stroking his cheeks gently. She pulled away, her hands sliding down his body to his chest, where they stopped, and he lowered his gaze and looked at them for a moment, then he went back to stare at Ziva, a smile on his face. He nodded.

After she walked away, leaving him alone in the middle of the garden, he listened to the beating of his heart, which was slowing down but still hectic. He was overwhelmed by a sensation of happiness as he recalled the kiss in his mind and felt surprised when he realized that his heart had been freed from that feeling of uneasiness, sadness, from that weight that had pressed his heart in the past months.

He felt light, and, for the first time, unafraid of the future.

And as he walked toward the restaurant, following the path drawn in the night by Ziva's body, he thought, with a sense of release in his heart and in his brain, two simple words:"At last."

**I would really like it if you reviewed this oneshot and told me what you thought of it :)**


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